The bridegroom grew red with shame and passion, and when Janet told him she had come for the payment he promised, he vowed, if she did not quit the house, he would tie her neck and heels, and fling her out of the window. This threat made Janet wrathful, and with heavy maledictions that struck terror into the hearts of all the company, she turned her back upon them, and departed from the house.
No sooner had she quitted it, than a new wonder arose—the bride flew hastily to her apartment, nor could all her friends prevail upon her to quit it. Her former dislike to Jacob returned with redoubled violence. She refused to become his bride, and kneeling down returned thanks to heaven for the fate she had escaped. All was confusion. The disappointed bridegroom with dreadful threats of vengeance, dashed furiously out of the house, in the direction of Cwm Bychan.
Rage subdued fear in his breast, and the pathless rocks, over which he had to scramble, seemed to add fresh fuel to his flames. Long and loudly did he knock at the door of Janet’s hut, until maddened with delay, he with his foot sent it flying from its hinges, and there he saw a figure resembling himself modelled in wax, with a needle passed through the body, placed before a fire—and on a sudden Jacob began to sweat with fear. All the horrors attached to this well known ceremony amongst witches, rushed to memory. He remembered the story of King Duncan of Scotland, which he had often read over, with pious terror, in the pages of Hollingshed, who was in this way tortured by a witch, and, with prayers and ejaculations, he ran from his effigy, stumbling and breaking his knees over the rugged stones, while thorns and briars tore his quivering flesh, as, unconscious of the pain, he scrambled through. At length, in horrid plight, breathless and faint, he reached his quarters in the town of Harlech, where he was shortly after put to bed in extreme agony, both of body and mind.
“Weary seven nights, nine times nine,
Did he dwindle, peak, and pine.”
Meanwhile, General Mytton was hotly besieging the castle, which was defended, with almost unprecedented bravery, by William Owain, the governor, with no more than twenty-eight followers. In vain did the clang of arms strike upon the warlike ears of Jacob;—he might have exclaimed, in the language of Othello—
“Farewell the plumed troop, and the big war
Which makes ambition virtue—oh farewell!”
But, as he never read such profane authors, he contented himself with a pious curse or two every second on the witch who had reduced him to such a state of feebleness. He who was once foremost in the onset, whose voice would animate his soldiers with a religious zeal, and oft reclaim the fortune of the fight—the brawny, fearless Presbyterian lay like a puling infant on his bed, wasted and pale, with scarcely breath enough to render himself audible to those around him.
Sorely did Mytton need his aid, his reckless daring in leading an assault—for the stimulating energy of his example was electric.
One night, when he heard the loud shouts of the enemy, and the declining voices of his friends, Jacob grasped his sword, and, starting from his bed, rushed, or rather staggered, to the barbican, which had been scaled by a small body of the parliament forces, who surprised the warders at the drawbridge, which crossed the fosse upon the inside, when, from the interior a body of the royalists rushed with desperate valour, the assailing party were forced to retreat by opening the massy gate of the barbican, but not without leaving many wounded and dying comrades in the deep fosse, into which they had been thrown during the struggle on the drawbridge. At this critical moment, when disgrace appeared to hang over the banner of his leader, Jacob, en chemise, forced his way into the scene of action, striking terror to the foe, who took him for an apparition, and invigorating the hearts of his friends. The royalists, who had advanced, were driven back again in their turn.
But the hope of victory betrayed the besiegers to their ruin. Jacob, determined to take the castle or die, with a huge axe was cutting through the drawbridge to deprive his followers of all hope of escape, by retreating that way; and the battle became furious beneath the double portcullis which crowns the principal entrance. The besieged were driven nearly into the inner court, when the mighty voice of Owain cried aloud—“Let fall the portcullis!” So promptly was this order obeyed, that the outer and inner grating enclosed the besiegers, as in a cage, and left them entirely at the mercy of their conquerors.